Weather or Not

We've been REALLY lucky on this tour with the weather. I mean REALLY, REALLY lucky. It looked like today would break our streak.

I woke up, called up weather.com on my computer, and saw there might be some trouble. This proved I'm a hopeless geek with no common sense. If I would have opened my curtain, I would have seen an impressive midwestern thunderstorm. But that would be low tech.

We ate breakfast, watched the storm blow over, delayed only 15 minutes, then headed out. There were black clouds in several directions, but no lightning. We rode the first 25 miles while watching a black wall to the north. I've never seen clouds quite like those. I wish I had a photo, but the wall overtook us just as we got to a convenience store where we could take cover. We hung out for a while, then Tracy gave the okay to head out again. That's Tracy talking to Greg below: Tracy is the owner of Crossroads (this tour company) and the keeper of all touring knowledge. There is only one thing you need to know to be successful on this tour - always listen to Tracy. It makes life simple, and she is always right. In the picture above, Tracy is evaluating those black clouds ahead of us and deciding whether or not to let us go on. She let us continue, and once again she was right - the weather was fine for cycling. A few sprinkles, but no lightning strikes to turn us into crispy critters.

Speaking of critters, Missouri so far wins the award for most road kill. We could turn this into a self supporting tour by buying the Road Kill Cookbook, and simply eating what we find. Very large turtles, snakes, deer, racoons and other curry creatures make for a fine variety of cuisine.

Back to the weather. Every small river and creek we crossed looked like this:
They are all overflowing their banks, with loads of branches and debris being swept along. There has been a ton of rain here lately, but we continue to be lucky and have mostly danced around it. I realize I've doomed us now.

Today was a ride dubbed "the 158 hill ride". Some poor soul on a previous Crossroads trip counted the hills. I think his name was Rain Man. The hills just kept coming, and lots of them had short, steep grades. I think our elevation stayed mostly between 700 and 1000 feet, so it was just constant rolling. It would be the perfect route to do some intense interval training, but that would be stupid on this trip. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

Tonight we're in Kirksville, Missouri. Our hotel is on the outskirts, so we haven't seen much. For all I know there are no inskirts in this town, but there are two universities - Truman State and A.T. Still. Harry Truman is from Missouri and one of my favorite presidents, so I'm glad we're near his university.